DE 196 38 252 A1 discloses a ball joint with a ball fitted into and able to rotate within a recess of a ball joint housing, the ball having a ball pin attached thereto that extends outward, such that the recess surrounds the ball over more than half its half-shell. The ball joint housing consists of a tubular wall component with locking elements facing inward, and the space formed by the wall component is filled by a housing material cast or injected therein to form the recess, in which the ball is fitted and able to rotate by virtue of an intermediate bearing layer that surrounds it at least in the area of the recess.
EP 1 953 012 A2 discloses a joint rod for use in vehicles, with a strut element connected at least at one end to a joint, such that the strut element is formed by an open section and the joint is formed by a ball of a ball pin fitted and able to move in a thin-walled sliding shell. The end of the strut element and the sliding shell are together at least partially surrounded by an injected plastic mantle, which forms the connection between the end of the strut element and the thin-walled sliding shell of the ball joint. The end of the strut element is in the form, for example, of a ring surrounding the ball.
Such ball joints, also referred to as hybrid ball joints, as a rule consist of two sub-components, of which one sub-component consists of a ball joint unit with a ball pin and a second sub-component is a structural component. The two sub-components are connected to one another in a form-interlocked manner with the help of an additional element by an assembly process (injection molding, pressure diecasting, etc.), which element thus forms a casting.
However, with such hybrid ball joints the problem arises that the maximum forces that can be transmitted in the axial direction are not large enough for every application purpose.